


so let's leave the weeping to the willow trees

by brightwrites



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends to Lovers, Blood, Crushes, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Hanahaki Disease, Language of Flowers, M/M, Making Out, Michael-centric, POV Michael, Panic Attacks, Pining, Requited Love, Temporarily Unrequited Love, The Author Regrets Everything, Underage Drinking, Unrequited Love, boyf riends - Freeform, christine is so done with these two, flower symbolism, which turns into
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 15:14:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13126329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightwrites/pseuds/brightwrites
Summary: It felt like something was in his mouth. Something soft and bloody.Quite a bit disgusted and freaked out now, Michael excused himself to the bathroom so as not to worry Jeremy. He leaned heavily on the sink, then spat out the thing in his mouth.What came out was a small, spit-covered and blood-stained, gardenia petal.





	so let's leave the weeping to the willow trees

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Owl City's "Honey and the Bee".

The first time it happened, Michael was terrified.

It was sophomore year. He had been sitting on a beanbag, talking about nothing in particular with Jeremy. Jeremy had smiled after Michael had cracked some dumb joke, a full, genuine smile that subtly curved all across his face. His blue eyes sparkled in the dim lights of his basement, and he had leaned towards Michael and opened his mouth to make some witty response.

Michael felt a tickle in his throat, and quickly turned his head away and placed a hand over his mouth so as to not cough all over Jeremy.

The cough had been more painful than anticipated, and Michael tasted something weird in his mouth. Something that reminded him of when he brushed his teeth too hard. Blood.

Feeling a little worried that he was coughing up blood, Michael then noticed something else weird. It felt like something was in his mouth. Something soft and bloody.

Quite a bit disgusted and freaked out now, Michael excused himself to the bathroom so as not to worry Jeremy. He leaned heavily on the sink, then spat out the thing in his mouth.

What came out was a small, spit-covered and blood-stained, gardenia petal.

* * *

 

That night when he went home, Michael turned to Google in the desperate hopes that it wasn't what he knew it was.

But nothing came up about coughing up bloody petals but the Hanahaki disease. Michael sank down onto his bed, head in his hands.  _ Oh god. _ There was no one else he could be in love with but Jeremy. He was in love with his best friend. His best friend who, he knew for definite now, did not love him back in a romantic sense.  _ Oh god. Oh god oh god ohgodohgodohgod. _

Everyone knew about the Hanahaki disease. It was in every soap opera, every romance movie, anything and everything containing a love triangle.

And one of the most popular things about it was that the victim of the disease would eventually die of the flowers in their lungs.

Scientists didn’t have any idea of how to explain it. They theorized that the hormones produced when the person fell in love mixed with the pollen that they might have breathed in, and caused flowers to sprout in their lungs. But that hypothesis was very loose and really just an educated guess. No one could explain how the flowers could predict whether or not the person loved them back or not.

Michael felt a sick feeling rise up his throat, and it wasn’t petals. He was going to die unless he stopped loving Jeremy romantically. Surgery to remove the flowers could only be done by highly trained professionals. It was extremely expensive, barely covered by insurance, and had a waiting list years long.

Michael felt something irritate his throat, but kept his mouth firmly sealed shut. Nope. He was absolutely not going to cough up another petal. He may or may not have been in denial.

But soon his body was trembling violently and his eyes were watering, so he just gave in and allowed his body to hawk up the petal. A daffodil one, speckled with crimson and lying innocently in his palm.

Michael threw it on the ground and crushed it under his foot.

* * *

 

It got worse as the year went on. They were reaching the end of sophomore year, and Michael was coughing up several petals at a time. He had to carry a pack of tissues everywhere he went to keep his condition a secret from Jeremy.

Sometimes he would think to himself that maybe he might be getting over his crush on Jeremy, but then Jeremy would smile at him again, or his hair would flop over his eyes, and Michael would have to go excuse himself to cough up more bloody petals, and would be forced to face the fact that he was going to die young.

The day Jeremy had admitted his crush on Christine, the petals had almost choked Michael.

* * *

 

Once Jeremy had started ignoring Michael, the petals were getting almost too much to bear. They started coming up in huge, wilted clumps, crusted together with dried blood. They were the ugliest thing that he had ever seen.

His throat had a neverending ache from the frequent episodes of coughing, accompanied with full-body shaking as his body tried desperately to hack up the painful lumps.

Michael sat pathetically on the cold floor of the bathroom, trying to stem the tears trickling steadily down his face. He suddenly felt, not just a scratching in his lungs, but a swirling in his stomach too.

He leant over the toilet, but his hacking had soon mixed with vomiting. He was puking up dark crimson rose petals and black blood. Tears kept dripping down his face, and the petals just. Wouldn’t. Stop.

There was yelling outside, but it just mixed with the pounding in his head and left him overwhelmed to the point where he couldn’t breathe, even between the bouts of spewing bloody petals from his mouth.

But soon Michael  realized that it wasn’t just the panic attack that was clogging his windpipe. There was smoke pouring under the door and filling Michael’s flower-infested lungs. He stumbled into a standing position, blood still leaking from his mouth.

The ground seemed to sway uncontrollably underneath him as he pitched headfirst towards the window. The aftereffects of a panic attack, mixed with smoke inhalation, mixed with alcohol. No wonder he felt like he was floating yet being crushed into the ground at the same time.

Michael clumsily broke the window with a couple of unsteady kicks. He climbed out, paying no attention to the broken glass scraping his skin, and staggered home, thanking God that his parents were out.

He tended to his wounds the next morning. And if he choked up more petals while he was doing it, well, that was no one else’s fucking business.

* * *

 

Once Jeremy became his friend again, the petals eased off into three or four bouts of coughing a day. After Jeremy and Christine broke up, Michael was extremely ashamed to admit it, but as much as he felt sympathy for Jeremy, he didn’t cough anything up that day.

But his new group of eight (eight!) friends were getting concerned. Jeremy, especially. “Are you sure you shouldn’t see a doctor? I’m pretty sure you’ve had this cough since sophomore year. That’s definitely too long to have a cough, dude.”

Michael had long since accepted that he was going to die, most likely before he could even graduate high school. He could feel his death date creeping closer every time he turned his head away to cough into a tissue and ignore the worried gazes of his friends.

Google said that the best way to predict your death, as a Hanahaki victim, is that you’ll only die after spitting out no other flowers but white chrysanthemum petals for roughly a month.

Michael learned that after he started choking them up for a week straight.

* * *

 

Two weeks after he started coughing up chrysanthemum petals, he was hanging out with Christine. The two of them had really hit it off as friends over their mutual love of musicals. They were discussing Bare’s  _ Ever After _ , when Michael felt the familiar tickle at the back of his throat.   


He reached towards his tissues, but to his horror, he was all out. He clasped his hand firmly over his mouth, but unfortunately his body decided to have a particularly bad attack, as his palm came back slick with blood, with white chrysanthemum petals stuck to it. Gross.

But Michael couldn’t hide this from Christine. There was a soft gasp from where he deliberately avoided her eyes, and a surprisingly strong hand grasped his wrist.

Christine yanked his hand towards her to inspect, her hands shaking a little. “Michael… Oh my God...”

He pulled his hand back gently, wiping his palm on his jeans and leaving a dark smear. “Christine, c’mon, it’s fine–”

“It is  _ not _ fine!” Christine shrieked, startling Michael, and stabbing her fingers towards the stain on his jeans, tears in her eyes. “I know what those mean!”

Michael paled. “Christine, please…”

She shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks. “How long?” She demanded. “How long have–” She cut herself off to suppress a sob.

He reached out a hand to console her, but decided against it, and wrapped his arms around himself. “Um–” He swallowed painfully, staring blankly at the ground. “Two weeks since I s-started coughing up these.”

Christine gasped for breath, before pulling Michael into a hug so tight that it almost hurt. “Michael,” She started seriously, tears wetting his shoulder, “You have to tell Jeremy.”

He nodded as they pulled out of the embrace. Christine was still crying, and Michael wanted to comfort her, but it was hard when he was the source of her tears. “I– I will. Soon.”

Christine gave him a watery smile, before yanking him in for another hug.

* * *

 

The day before Michael planned on telling Jeremy about his imminent death, three weeks after he had started coughing up the chrysanthemum petals of doom, something strange happened.

The petals stopped.

All day, Michael didn’t feel the regular prickle in his throat. No petals tried to force their way out of his lungs. For the first time in what felt like forever, the metallic taste of blood didn’t taint his tongue and snatch away his appetite.

Michael felt almost free.

It didn’t come back. Any hacking up that Michael did was for completely normal reasons, such as dust or inhaling water.

His friends, who had seemed to be getting closer and closer to actually kidnapping him and driving him to a doctor’s appointment, were extremely relieved that Michael’s Omnipresent Cough had decided to pack its bags and leave. He saw it in their glances, the fourth day without any sort of tissues necessary.

But Michael couldn’t explain how it had just… stopped. He knew that he hadn’t fallen out of love with Jeremy. He knew that when Jeremy gave him a big, soft smile on that fourth day.

The week that Michael was supposed to die of Hanahaki came and went. The next Monday, Christine pulled him aside to ask about it, and he told her the honest answer. That he hadn’t spewed up any petals at all for almost two weeks. She had cried a little bit in relief and gave him another hug.

Yes, Michael was very much thankful for being alive, and not hacking up blood several times a day, despite what his suicidal thoughts might tell him, but he was extremely confused. Why had the petals stopped?

He got his answer three weeks later.

* * *

 

Brooke had invited them all to a beginning-of-summer party at her house. Michael wasn’t a big fan of crowds due to his tendency for sensory overload, but the entire Squip Squad had begged him to go, and, well, Michael was weak when it came to making his friends happy. Plus, Brooke said that there wasn’t going to be as many people as there were at the Halloween party.

It was nearing midnight, Rich and Jake were snogging in the corner, Chloe and Brooke were wrapped up in each other on the couch, fast asleep, and Christine and Jenna were off chatting with people.

Michael collapsed on another couch, next to a tipsy Jeremy. And Michael? Well, Michael himself was completely and utterly plastered.

Jeremy smiled lopsidedly at him, and Michael gave him a giant grin back.

And that’s as far as he remembers that night.

* * *

 

Jeremy was acting weirdly around him the next day. When Michael sat next to him for breakfast in Brooke’s kitchen, he tensed up and glanced over at Michael nervously. Michael shot him a quizzical look in return.

“So–” Jeremy started, picking up his burnt piece of toast– “How’s the hangover?”

Michael groaned, planting his head in his hands. “Awful, I must have been absolutely fuckin’ hammered. I can’t remember anything past midnight.” He noticed that Jeremy had gone about three shades paler. “What’s up?”

“N-nothing.” Jeremy wouldn’t look him in the eye as he gave his answer.

Michael was worried, but the tension dissipated the next day, so he just assumed that Jeremy had a really bad hangover.

That changed the day after Michael received a text from Jenna, that simply said,  _ u and jeremy have some srs explaining 2 do 2morrow at school. _

Michael walked into lunch, which the entire Squip Squad had together. The moment he sat down, he noticed that Jeremy had this horrified expression on his face. He looked like he had just been told that his entire family was to be killed the next day.

Michael was about to ask him about it, but he was interrupted as Jenna started talking, and the entire table quieted.

“Guys.  _ Guys!  _ Remember Brooke’s party?” Jenna was excited, which was never a good sign. They all nodded.

“Of course we remember the party,  _ Jenna _ . It was last week.” Chloe rolled her eyes.

Jenna simply sent her a glare. “ _ Anyway,  _ as I was saying, none of us seem to actually  _ remember _ it.” She pulled out her phone, scrolling through it. “Because I found out that something  _ ripe _ happened at the party that no one remembers.”

Jenna showed them the screen, and Michael’s blood ran cold.

It was Michael and Jeremy. Making out sloppily. Like, Jeremy was on Michael’s lap and his hands were in Michael’s hair. Michael had his arms wrapped around Jeremy’s waist. Jenna was whooping drunkenly from behind the camera, and somewhere in the distance, off to the side, Christine yelled, “You get your man!”

The lunch table sat in silence for a moment after the thirty second clip ended, before Jenna slammed her hand down on the table.

“Who remembers this?” She demanded, glaring around at everyone’s shocked faces. Michael must have looked bewildered, because, well, he was.  _ Wait I made out with Jeremy at the party and he made out with me and he seemed to be enjoying it? Wait what the hell I don’t remember this– _

Christine cleared her throat, before slowly raising her hand. She was immediately met with exclamations and questions, some less innocent than others, such as “Just how far did these two go?” “Did they use a condom?”

They fell back into silence as Christine sent Jeremy a cutting look. He went ruby red, avoiding eye contact with everyone but the table under him. “I–” his voice cracked painfully– “I k-kind of remember?”

He was met with even more outrage, yelling and outbursts involved, although they were less angry than surprised and triumphant. Eventually, though, all eyes turned to Michael, who was flushed red and silent. He didn’t know what to think. It explained why Jeremy had acted so strange around him the next morning, but why hadn’t he said anything? Like,  _ Hey, buddy, we kind of drunkenly made out last night and I just found out that you don’t remember it.  _

He lifted his eyes from where they were glued to his hands, to meet Jeremy’s, who immediately looked away.

“Uh, Jere…” He started, but he wasn’t exactly sure how to finish it. Something like  _ I’m sorry  _ or something like that, but he had no idea of the events leading up to him and Jeremy kissing. Had Jeremy even known that it was Michael he was making out with?

“I have to go,” Jeremy muttered, grabbing his bag and practically sprinted out of the cafeteria.

Michael was still for a moment, staring wide-eyed after his best friend, before Christine smacked his arm gently. “Go after him!”

He didn’t need to be told twice. He, too, grabbed his bag and shot after Jeremy.

* * *

 

Michael found him in the bathroom, splashing his face.

“Um–” He began, before Jeremy glanced up, startled, with a look on his face like a cornered deer.

“Oh, h-hey Michael!” Jeremy gave him a forced smile.

Michael took a step forward, bringing an equally awkward smile onto his own face. “Uh, hey dude.” There was a tense silence for half a minute.

The next words out of Jeremy’s mouth came out rushed and overlapping. “Listen I’m really sorry for kissing you at the party I’m so sorry you were drunk Ishouldn’thavedoneitI’msosorry–”

Michael held up his hand a little bit, pausing Jeremy’s frantic ramble. It made sense to him, suddenly. The reason why the petals had suddenly stopped.

There are only three ways for being a victim of the Hanahaki disease to end. Death, by your lungs tearing and/or your trachea being completely clogged with petals, falling out of love with the person that caused the disease, or the love becoming mutual.

Holy shit, Michael was an idiot.

“I love you.”

Jeremy’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to respond, but Michael wasn’t done yet. He’d already unlocked the floodgates, what was the point of keeping any of it in?

“And I– I mean it in a romantic sense. I fell in love with you sophomore year. I was kinda forced to figure that out, b-because– well, you know that cough I had there for like a year? It was– I had the Hanahaki disease.”

Jeremy stepped towards him, looking shocked. “Michael, oh my God, Michael–”

“B-but then one day it stopped. The petals stopped. And I was really confused because I had absolutely no idea why, but now I think I understand.” He gave a half shrug, not meeting the other boy’s eyes. “I think I understand.” He repeated, before looking up to see that Jeremy was barely half a foot away.

Michael was suddenly wrapped up in the warmest hug he had ever received, with Jeremy’s face buried in the crook between his neck and his shoulder.

They stayed that way for a little while, allowing time to pass by with no regards for it. Eventually, though, Jeremy pulled back and looked Michael in the eye.

“I love you.” He took a deep breath, his pale skin flushing pink. “After the party, Christine realized that I remembered and she told me to tell you, but, I guess I can’t– I’m a little bitch when it come to things like this.” Michael shook his head, his face getting closer to Jeremy’s, who flushed even further.

“Can I kiss you?” Jeremy gave a tiny nod.

They didn’t get to their next classes, that afternoon.

**Author's Note:**

> Flower Symbolism:  
> Gardenias - Secret love  
> Daffodils - Unrequited love  
> Dark crimson roses - Grief and sorrow  
> White chrysanthemums - Death
> 
> Also a reference to Bare's _Ever After,_ which isn't exactly about unrequited love, but is about strain on a romantic relationship between two boys.
> 
> This turned out three times longer than originally intended, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> The friendship between Christine and Michael is very important to me bc I love them both
> 
> It's december 24th as i'm writing this, so merry christmas assholes!!
> 
> ~FALFAL


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